8 comments:

One sometimes wonders if Facebook and - Gods' Forbid - "Twitter" have taken over people's interest in blogs..... Hey, I'm just craving some contact with other humans - but I'm *not* going to Twitter, what next, single word communication? Then shrugs?

Well I'm here, on occasion. And I'll never Twitter, so help me Goddess. (Or use Facebook, or MySpace; that place gives me freakin' hives.)

I guess I unbookmarked you when you stopped posting for a time, and since then I forget until I come across the link on Wild Hunt. But I just re-bookmarked you.

My first reaction to all those penii (?) was, awwwwww, how cute. Then, what, that many men in Pompeii couldn't get it up?

Then I went and Google Imaged 'human uterus' because I'd never understood the thing about the uterus being kind of rough and spiky looking (I assume the trilobite-looking votives are uteri), nor the old comparison of the uterus to a hedgehog(!). Well, it wasn't for the squeamish, but I knew that. And they didn't look spiky at all, but quite smooth. So I don't understand.

Hi everybody! Thalia, thanks for your long post. Chas, actually I don't know about those inscriptions but I'll get Simon to check in his book on the erotic art of Pompeii. Steve, no these are from the Naples Museum. I went to the Melbourne exhibition today actually, and *did not think it was very good*! I think it was designed for children, it was OK, but I wasn't that thrilled with it. There just wasn't actually that much there.

@Mike: Of course they weren't circumcised, it's Pompeii! If it were Jerusalem that fact *might* be more surprising; but, Roman culture revered the intact human form (rightly so IMHO)... Would you sacrifice a 'damaged' good to your deity? Devout followers of Priapus reportedly made offerings of 'actual' whole genitalia. Presumably, these terra-cotta items would seemingly be from a later time---once sacrificial practice became less rigorous.